LA VERNE – To some, the newly installed sign along Arrow Highway just east of Fairplex’s Gate 15 is simply a means of guiding visitors to the L.A. County Fair.

However, that neon sign on the La Verne side of Fairplex is filled with history.

It was built in the early 1960s in the area of White Avenue and Foothill Boulevard as part of the old Mt. Baldy Drive-In Theatre, said Sharon Willison of the Williams Sign Co. in Pomona, which built and restored the sign.

“My dad did some of the neon work,” Willison said referring to her father, Justin “Jay” Williams, son of company founder Maurice Williams.

On Monday, Willison’s son, Chad Bruce, was part of the team that erected the 5-foot-by-15<MD+,%30,%55,%70>3/<MD-,%0,%55,%70>4-foot main section with another smaller sign reading “La Verne” on top and the image of Fair mascot Thummer. The drive-in opened in 1960 and closed in 1984, according to the book “Cruising the Pomona Valley” by Charles Phoenix.

Willison, who runs the business for her father and serves as the chief financial officer, said she remembers other signs guiding visitors to the Fair.

This sign, however, is the only one of its kind, and when the drive-in closed, Fairplex got the sign, she said.

“The sign has been sitting in our construction grounds for years and years,” said Dale Coleman, vice president of sales, marketing and programming for the Los Angeles County Fair Association. “For years I thought we should renovate that thing.”

Coleman said he asked La Verne City Manager Martin Lomeli if the city would be open to having the restored sign erected again on the La Verne side of Fairplex.

Last year the city approved the idea, Coleman said.

Willison said restoring the sign was no easy task.

“It was fun doing it but it was a lot of work,” she said.

On Tuesday, La Verne city officials and Fairplex representatives took part in a ceremony to unveil the restored sign.